Kiss
by Crysania
Summary: From a prompt on Tumblr: I need a Quiet Minds AU where the "a life for a life" thing doesn't happen and Zelena doesn't appear once Rumple is brought back and now Neal has to stop Rumple and Belle from kissing all the time. "Guys, really, no kissing, we talked about that. I need the magic to get back to my family!" [Written after 3x15]


Exhaustion set in almost as soon as the trio arrived at the Dark Castle. Belle and Neal had traveled far and wide to find a way to bring Rumplestiltskin back to their world. From Snow's castle to Rumplestiltskin's to the forests of the surrounding area. It had been weeks. Weeks of bedding down on the hard ground, weeks of talking and getting to know each other, weeks of processing Rumplestiltskin's sacrifice. By the time they had managed to work the complicated magic to bring him back, Belle could barely keep her eyes open. Neal wasn't in much better shape.

And Rumplestiltskin? He looked like he had come back from the dead.

The last thing he managed to do before passing out into oblivion was to transport them all back to the safety of his castle. The witch was still on the loose somewhere, not having gotten the dagger as she thought she would.

She had underestimated Belle, had given her and Neal the easy way out and didn't expect someone with her bookish tendencies to do proper research before setting out. A life for a life. That's what the key would have cost. And so Belle had stopped Neal from rushing headlong into a mistake that even Rumplestiltskin would not be able to be fix.

There had been a spell instead, complicated and long, whose cost was less dire. They had gone that route, leaving the area in rubble, but both Rumplestiltskin and Neal alive. It had been worth it.

Neal had helped transport his father to his bedchamber and had left Belle alone with him there. She'd seen to his comfort, removing the cloak he wore, lightly touching the curled hair that framed his face as she tucked him into the covers of the bed. She hadn't seen him looking like this in what seemed like forever to her. Nigh on thirty years, though it seemed that only a handful of those had passed. Her last glimpse of this form of her love had been through tears as she left the castle.

She couldn't say that it seemed like nothing had changed. They were so very different than they were when they were last at the Dark Castle together. But for a moment, she wondered where they might have been if she had never left, if this was a continuation of their time together so long ago.

"Belle?"

She smiled and touched the side of his face briefly. "We're home, Rumple."

"How?"

"You got us here."

"No…" His eyes closed briefly and she could see that he was struggling to keep his mind together long enough to speak. "How am I _here_?"

"Oh. Neal…Baelfire…and I. We found a way to bring you back." She didn't feel like going into details, the things they had to collect, the dragon that had nearly killed Neal when they attempted to retrieve an ancient tome from its lair, the goblin they had traded away far too much of Rumplestiltskin's spun gold to for what appeared to be nothing more than a flat rock.

"The price…"

"We paid it. We're fine." She brushed his hair back from his face. "We're _both_ fine. And you will be too. Soon."

"I feel…"

"Weak, I know." She lay down next to him, curled close to his body. "Rest, love."

She felt his breathing slow soon after and, finally able to breathe freely herself, she fell asleep with one hand on his chest.

* * *

The next morning Belle was in the Great Hall, hand lightly touching the spinning wheel when a rather groggy Neal appeared. "How are you feeling?"

He glanced briefly around the room. "Better. The room I found seemed pretty comfortable."

"Better than the forest floor, at any rate." They had a moment of shared camaraderie, remembering far too many mornings lamenting the sticks that poked them during the night, the rocks they found under tender places, the sore muscles, the lack of pillows. They had become soft, used to modern comforts, over the years.

"Yeah."

Belle heard a small sound coming from the entranceway and turned. Rumplestiltskin was standing in the doorway, looking about as bleary-eyed as his son did. She had never thought Neal looked all that much like his father and Rumplestiltskin had more than once told her that he had been lucky to get his mother's looks, but this morning she saw the resemblance in the way they rubbed their eyes and squinted in the morning light.

"Rumple!" She rushed across the room, stopping just short of reaching out to him. His arms were opened slightly, ready to welcome her into the embrace. She stepped into his arms, grateful to feel him wrap them around her. But she had a niggling suspicion. Looking up at him, lips so close and yet so far, she knew the truth. "We can't, can we?"

His eyes closed for a moment as he gave a slight shake of his head.

Stepping out of his arms and away from him, Belle grimaced and walked away. They were back. They were _home_. But it wasn't really home to all of them. Neal wanted to get back to Emma, to _his_ home.

Neal approached Belle, glancing quickly at his father before leaning close to her. "What the hell was that about?"

"It's his curse," Belle murmured.

"The Dark One curse?" Neal's face slightly scrunched up slightly in that same confused look his father sometimes got.

She nodded. "If we kiss, he loses it."

Neal's eyes widened, understanding dawning. "And if he loses it, he loses all of the magic."

"And then he can't get you home." Belle bit her lower lip as Rumplestiltskin came up behind her, briefly touching her shoulder before wrapping his arm around her and drawing her in close. Belle knew this was going to be far more difficult this time. Feelings were out in the open and they had both gotten used to the closeness, the intimacy, the ability to kiss each other without worrying about it.

"And we can't have that, can we?" Rumplestiltskin's voice was higher-pitched here, back in their world, though he didn't sound quite like the Dark One she remembered. He was quieter, more subdued. She missed the flamboyant gestures and strange giggle. She never quite realized that, back in the other land, where he seemed so human. The gestures would have been out of place there, as out of place as his still calmness was here.

For a moment all three were silent. It wasn't quite companionable. There were things that should be said, things that all needed to get a better understanding of. But it was something for now, a family reunion of sorts. The Dark One, his true love, and her would-be step-son.

"Right," Neal finally responded with and the awkwardness of the moment was over.

* * *

Neal had gone almost immediately to Belle's tower room. If they were going to find a way back, research needed to be done. Belle had offered to go through her books, but Neal though it best for him to stay away from the tower that housed the more magical tomes. He knew enough of his father's magic to be wary.

Belle knew enough of it to know she'd be safe. And besides, she wanted to stay as close to Rumplestiltskin as possible.

They were seated next to each other at one of the high tables in his tower room, he poring through spell books and she going through the safer books on the history of magic. They were a team again and Belle couldn't help but smile at that.

"What are you smiling at?"

Belle started at his voice and glanced up at him. "You." She still couldn't quite believe he was there with her.

"Me?" He gave a slight huff and looked back at the book.

Belle inched a little closer to him, probably a bit too close all things considered. "Yes…you." Her voice had grown just slightly husky as she leaned in toward him. "I never thought I'd see you again."

He reached up a hand and used his thumb to brush away a tear from near the corner of her eye. "Oh, Belle." It was natural, really, to lean in, to brush lips against lips. They had done it hundreds of times in Storybrooke, after all. And Rumplestiltskin and Belle were nothing if not creatures of habit.

"Hey guys I think I found something." Neal burst into the room, his excited voice preceding his entrance by just a few seconds.

Just a hair's breadth away from the kiss, Belle jumped back, letting out a small squeak.

Neal looked from Belle who had her hand held up, covering her mouth, to Rumplestiltskin, whose smirk was anything but innocent. "What are you doing?"

"I…um…" Belle started to say.

"You weren't _kissing_, were you? You told me you couldn't." His look was pointed.

"We can't," Rumplestiltskin muttered, eyes not meeting his son. "And we weren't. It seems you saved us from ourselves."

Neal managed an eye roll worthy of any teenage boy. Belle actually had to fight back a giggle at the sight. He had grown up, was physically close to her own age, but sometimes she thought he must still must seem so young to his father.

"So you had something for us?"

"Right." Neal pulled out the book he had found in Belle's library and set it carefully on the table and the three of them set to examining what he found.

* * *

Neal's book hadn't yielded many results. Rumplestiltskin had dismissed it almost immediately. He had also dismissed the next three that he had come up with. There was something specific he was looking for, Belle was sure of it.

When he sent his son back to the library for the fourth time, Belle suggested a walk in the gardens. They needed some air, to get away from it all. They had had very little time to just _be_ since coming to the Dark Castle, little time to relish the fact that he was alive, they were together, that Neal was with them. They were a family. And all they could think about was how to get back to the world they had so recently left.

"I always wanted to walk here." Belle squeezed Rumplestiltskin's arm as they walked.

He glanced down at her, one eyebrow raised slightly. "Did you?"

She nodded. "I did. It looked lovely in the spring and I used to sit at the window and watch the wind in the trees and wish I could be out there."

The slight smile on his face faded. "I'm sorry, Belle. I didn't…"

She put a finger to his lips, stopping him from saying anything else. "I know."

He stopped and turned to face her completely, reaching out and grasping her hands in his. "Were you unhappy here, Belle? All those years ago?"

She hesitated and felt pained at the look of dismay that crossed his face. "No," she finally said. "I was content. I was not unhappy."

He looked solemn as he spoke. "But you were not happy." The words were not a question. They were a statement.

"Rumplestiltskin, do not berate yourself for things in the past. I was only unhappy to be cooped up in the spring. But you? You were an adventure. As was the castle. I couldn't have asked for a greater adventure in life than to be the true love of a sorcerer." Those words were honest, at least, and from the way his shoulders relaxed slightly, she knew he saw the truth in them.

"I'm…" He paused, touching her face lightly. "I'm glad I was such an adventure." The words were said with a slight quirk of his lips.

"I suspect you always will be," Belle returned, the same small smile gracing her face. He was _back_ and it still amazed her that she had a hand in that. They would have to return to the others…sometime. As much as she wanted this respite at his castle, at their _home_, they would have to tell the others what happened.

But for now, they had each other and Baelfire and perhaps that was all that mattered.

Belle put a hand on his shoulder, went up on her toes slightly, her lips coming scant inches from his. Closing her eyes, she crossed that final threshold, finally making contact. And then reared back when her mouth came in contact with something much firmer and a slightly more hairy than the lips she was expecting hers to touch.

Her eyes flew open. There was a hand there, placed over her love's mouth and pulling him back away from her. She looked over Rumplestiltskin's shoulder at the culprit.

"Neal," she muttered, somewhat stupidly.

"God damnit guys. I leave you alone for five minutes and you almost destroy his curse? Can you think for just _one_ minute? Use your brains? Everyone always told me you were smart, Belle. This is _not _smart."

Belle let out a giggle. She didn't mean to but the situation was so absurd.

Rumplestiltskin pushed his son's hand away from his mouth and gave him a sheepish grin. "It won't happen again, son."

"Right." Neal looked from his father to Belle. "Do I need to chaperone you two?"

Rumplestiltskin let out a noise that he covered with a cough. Belle smirked. "I think we can manage well enough on our own."

Neal just raised an eyebrow. "Well, we'll see about that."

* * *

They did manage. For almost two days, they managed to keep their hands off each other. Neal watched them closely any chance he had, popping up unexpectedly as they were bent over the same book in his tower room, when they were making tea alone in the kitchen. Neal was simply _everywhere_ in the castle.

Rumplestiltskin had not had the heart to complain. He was alive. His son was with him. He had his true love at his side. And even if they could not kiss, they were there, together, in love, a family. This was all he'd ever wanted in life and suddenly he had it. So the complaints were minimal.

Though he did draw her into a closet at one time to escape his son, nuzzling at her neck until the door flew open and Neal yanked him out. And another time he chased her out to a little hidden alcove near the pond. Neal was there too, claiming he was just out fishing even though Rumplestiltskin's magic provided them with their food.

It was the night Belle woke in the midst of a terrible nightmare that almost doomed them. They had been sleeping separately. It was simply too dangerous to sleep curled up together. They both knew that. One quiet moment in bed, half asleep, and the curse would break. They would be trapped and they both knew that couldn't happen.

She had rushed into his room, pulling back the covers and curling into him before she could even think clearly.

"Belle?" came the quiet, murmured response. "Belle, are you alright?"

She looked up at him from within the protective circle of his arms. "Nightmare," she muttered. She remembered only pieces of it and even those pieces were fading, replaced with nothing but a feeling of being unsettled.

It was all she had to say, really. He held her tightly, her head on his chest, his arms like a vise. It's where she's always felt safe, she's told him before, there in the dark during storms and nightmares. And he always indulges her. Tonight was no different and yet somehow it was. Her hand came up to caress the skin on his chest and it was darker, rougher than she remembers.

She had never touched him like this. Not during their previous time here. Leaning forward, she placed a chaste kiss on the bared skin of his chest and Rumplestiltskin's answering groan told her all she needed to know. He wanted her. He wanted _this_.

"If we don't kiss?" Belle murmured and pulled his nightshirt away a little, nipping at his shoulder as she did so.

"I've never read anything about true love's f…"

She put her hand over his mouth. There was no need to continue that train of thought.

It doesn't take him long to divest her of the nightgown she came to him in, pulling it up and over her head and tossing it in a heap on the ground at the side of the bed. His followed soon after and in lieu of the kiss they both wanted to share, he brought his mouth down to her neck, alternately nipping at her and soothing with his lips and tongue.

He was working his way up her neck, to her jaw, so very close to her lips when Belle suddenly let out an undignified squeak. For a moment he couldn't figure out quite what was happening. She was scrambling to grab the covers and wrap herself in them. Rumplestiltskin was left cold and bared to the wait as she shifted away.

"Really, Papa? Do I have to sleep in the same room as you two now?" Neal's voice came from somewhere in the darkness just beyond him and then suddenly the room was flooded with the light of a candle. Neal cursed.

"You can't tell us to get a room," Rumplestiltskin grumbled.

Belle tried to bite back a laugh.

"Right," Neal said. "Just…can you _not_? This really wasn't something I needed to see."

"If you'd hand me my nightshirt, you wouldn't have to," Rumplestiltskin pointed out, his voice rather even considering the way his son had caught him and Belle in bed. Another ten minutes and he might have _really_ gotten a show he'd never forget.

Neal grabbed his shirt and tossed at him, finding Belle's near it and tossing that one on the bed as well, before turning away as the couple hastily got dressed.

"Might I ask what you are doing in my bedchambers?"

Belle couldn't help but notice the ire lacing Rumplestiltkin's voice. Ire and amusement, she realized. She didn't know how he managed such a thing.

"Might I ask why _Belle_ is here?" Neal shot back with.

"Well, I thought that was rather obvious," Rumplestiltskin said with a bit of a hand flourish.

"Rumple," Belle murmured.

He sighed. "Belle is here because she had a nightmare. That still does not explain why _you_ are here. I assumed since you were an adult you would know better than to stumble into your father's bed chamber."

"You were going to kiss." Neal's voice sounded exasperated. "_Again_."

"How did you…" Belle began to say.

"Magic," Rumplestiltskin interrupted her with. "You cast a spell." There was a sort of wonder in his voice. "You hate magic."

"Sometimes it comes in handy," Neal said on a slight pout.

"And so every time we try to kiss?" Belle asked.

"I'll be transported to where you are."

Rumplestiltskin cursed.

Belle just laughed. "Well, I guess that's one way to solve the problem."

And solve it, it did. Over the next month, while trying to find their way back home, all one had to say to the other when the moment got heated was _Remember Neal_ and they broke out into laughter, the moment gone. They would kiss when they got back to the Land Without Magic and not before.


End file.
